


journeys end in lovers meeting.

by honeyroses



Category: Dark (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canon Rewrite, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, One Shot, Season 3, Soulmates, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 00:20:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28501380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeyroses/pseuds/honeyroses
Summary: The boy who was a stranger and yet he wasn't, and the girl who would always follow him.A study of Martha's inner thoughts every time she meets a new version of Jonas.
Relationships: Jonas Kahnwald/Martha Nielsen
Comments: 4
Kudos: 19





	journeys end in lovers meeting.

**Author's Note:**

> these two have ruined my brain for 6 months straight so i thought i'd dump my angst somewhere. they're genuinely a comfort couple for me, and so i'll most likely be periodically brainrot dumping some angsty one-shots here on occasion. for now, enjoy these sad soulmates <3

_A Stranger._

He was a stranger. A shaking stranger in tattered clothes that stared too much. A stranger that lingered suddenly, in places he seemed to know how to navigate and yet had never been. Winden didn’t get newcomers. It wasn’t large enough to warrant strange faces in the streets. Every family that resided there had done so for generations. It probably should’ve been alarming that no one ever left, that no one ever wanted to.

Magnus would joke about it sometimes, but he would never leave their mother. And where would he even go? While his heart was in the right place, the eldest Nielsen had always been a little too aimless for his own good. He revamped himself constantly, changing his room or his hair— he had taken to spending all the _please-oh-please-forgive-my-cheating-ways_ money their absent progenitor threw their way on several tattoos. “Franziska likes them”, was the excuse.

Martha just figured it was some form of self-punishment. Maybe that seemed too melodramatic, one of those thoughts you should push down and never linger on, but it ran through her mind every time he returned home with another black scribble etched onto his skin.

Tattoos hurt, she knew that much, and yet Magnus never even winced as they healed. The same boy who threw fits over withstanding school days with so much as a sore throat never muttered a single complaint about this pain.

Martha was saving her money. If she couldn't refuse Ulrich's pathetic attempts at reconciliation, she could hoard his money and use it to flee when the time came. Maybe she'd take the boys and Katarina away from Winden, away from the whispers and the stares and Hannah _Nielsen_. Or maybe she’d go alone, by herself. Change her name, cut off all her hair, and be someone new. She should think about going with Killian, in all honesty. He wanted to leave this place as much as she did, and she was meant to love him, wasn’t she? He was her boyfriend, she was meant to need him. But, those plans didn’t often include him as anything more than a footnote. Yet another thought she shouldn’t linger on.

There were restless souls in Winden, people with secrets, some aching to leave yet too deeply rooted to move. But no new faces. So, this boy was a stranger.

A dirt clad stranger, who hid his hands inside his sleeves and stared. She felt it in class, the moment he entered. He stared, unflinching when she looked back, and shaking, always shaking. Stepping toward her like he was barely aware of his surroundings, like his feet weren’t quite planted on the floor. “You have no idea who I am.”

It seemed to be a painful realization for him, and she didn’t. She really didn’t, or maybe shouldn’t have, but when Killian asked who he was, she felt an itch on the back of her throat. A tickle at the nape of her neck, an inkling of something she should know. Like it was pulling at her, like she should have an answer.

When he found her in the woods later, the fear came. He was, after all, a stranger. A stranger in the night, finding her in the forest; a stranger who had lurked quietly, with searching eyes that found nothing at all. Who showed up in her school, at her plays, by the caves in the woods she frequented so often. How did a newcomer know his way around, how did he know where to find her?

He was a stranger, he was a stranger and she should be afraid. But this wasn’t danger, this was unknowing, this was disremembering. So, finally, she scratched the itch. “Why won’t you tell me how we know each other?”

And then came the fear. “Actually, we’ve always known each other.”

But, was it fear or relief? Tears sprung to her eyes as he slowly came closer, as if wary of scaring her off again. He recounted her past to her— where he came from they had lived the same one. She should be afraid of the strange boy, strange in more ways than one. But his eyes had tears in them too, and she swore he was familiar.

So, when he talked of past lives, and future times, and promised he could show her; when he offered her his hand, she followed.

* * *

_Her Jonas._

She was drenched and already crying and just from the view of his back she knew this was going to hurt. He was taller now, his hair seemed darker, and his stance so very rigid. He hadn’t seen her yet, didn’t know her yet. He wouldn’t. This wasn’t Jonas, not her Jonas, anyway. This one hadn’t been infected with her presence in his life yet. Hadn’t looked at her and searched for something else. Hadn’t clung to her as if it would save him, hadn’t fallen apart in her hands. His blood had been everywhere. She could still remember the stench, she’d never forget it. Never forgive herself.

She gave herself a moment to revel in that guilt, feel it twist inside her, and let it ground her. She looked him up and down, took in his pulled back hair (not the one she’d gripped once), his wider back (not the one she’d embraced), the tenseness he radiated (the one she would only worsen). And selfishly, as if it would ever absolve her, she called out.

“Jonas.” Her voice tittered on the edge of inflecting a question. She knew the answer already. He was, but he wasn’t. Not hers. That was her punishment.

His head raised quickly, immediately. Her voice still haunted him, the one he’d known, the other life that had been entangled with his. He twisted toward her quickly, his breaths becoming pants as he stared her down. His face was foreign, but only slightly. It held the same look, the same high cheekbones she’d caressed, the same narrow lips she’d kissed. A tanner complexion, a full beard, and more lines granted by time were what struck as different. Time she’d taken from him. This was what her Jonas would’ve looked like if she’d never touched him, to begin with.

When he stepped toward her this time, he didn’t seem afraid she’d run. He seemed afraid she’d dissipate. That if he reached for her too quickly, she’d go up in smoke. “You lived.” He whispered, that far-away look overtaking his eyes. They were darker too. Was everything about this Jonas darker?

She waited because she owed him. The time to process, the time to hope, the time to grieve. And grieve, he would, when he understood that she wasn’t his either. She was little more than a mirage, and maybe for him, all versions of him, that is all she’d even been. When his fingers touched her skin, warm against her cheeks, she felt herself shake. This farse had reached its end, and it wasn’t fair to either of them. So she grasped his hands back, holding them. He was the one who started to pull away. As he did so, she held them a little tighter, forever selfish. “I’m not Martha,” it hurt to say. “Not your Martha.”

And the far-away look left. As she explained her purpose, her alienation, as she explained she wasn’t his either, numbness fell upon him. She wanted to apologize— not for what had happened to her own Jonas. It would be best if he didn’t know that. But for his lack of peace. For the way she could never be the reverie he’d hoped for.

* * *

_A Jonas._

Warmth. Warmth she’d never feel again, in any fate, in any time; warmth she could only hope for embraced her once more. Just once, for one last journey. His arms held her for a moment and then were gone as their setting changed and her circumstances ceased to matter. Jonas stared her down, gaze trapped somewhere between incredulousness and fear. He stood still as she stepped toward him, as he had once done himself. More times than she knew.

“You lived.” She gasped and she moved, closer and closer, slowly and steadily. Her hands began to reach for the boy she missed so dearly, for the life she had taken, for the love she had felt, and he seemed to stir awake. To finally react.

“You look just like her.” He mumbled. He’d never looked at her like this. Even when she was brash, when she didn’t understand, when she didn’t know him. There was always a patience to him. As he unraveled the mysteries of time to her, as he taught her where to go and how to get there, even as he died at her own fault. His far-away look was one of remembrance. Of love. Of someone desperate to be seen.

Staring back at nothing, now, she wondered if this was what he felt in that classroom. “You don’t know who I am.”

Her first response, especially in the light of his inertia, was anger. To question why she was there, why he took her, where they were. Maybe his patience under the same stresses made him a better person. The way he kept trying, the way he made her understand, made her love him. Maybe his patience was better than her anger.

Yet, this was still Jonas. Not her Jonas, maybe. Or maybe he could be. Did it matter? She’d never been _his_ Martha, but he had always been her Jonas. He’d allowed himself to be known by a stranger who wasn’t really a stranger at all, all over again. Allowed a mirage of someone he’d loved to grow to love him. Allowed himself to try and save her here.

He brushed off her anger as if it had never been there. Maybe the far-away look was wisdom, too. He answered her questions and told her the truth. Their point. And though, it was still confusing, though she still didn’t understand, it was still Jonas.

So, when he talked of their worlds, the origin, and this journey; when he offered her his hand, she followed.


End file.
